by Mary Bowers
Rita looked at Michael as if nothing had happened and said, “I hope you got more out of Victor than I’ve managed to so far. How did you meet him?”
We explained our clever ruse – and how it had flopped – and got a few laughs, but we didn’t get into the information he’d given us from Eden’s hard drive. The air was still full of tension, even though it had come down a notch or two.
“No,” Rusty said when we finished. “You’re not going to get anything out of Victor that he hasn’t already decided you should know.”
“How long have you known him?” Rita asked.
He looked away evasively. “Since he come to town.”
“We knew who he was before that, though,” Kady said. Rusty stared at her murderously. She gave him a mincing smile and sipped her iced coffee. “You know, you can’t blame those two for making fools of themselves over him: Kendra and Eden, I mean. They couldn’t help being fascinated by Victor. We all are.”
Rusty abruptly stood up and stalked out of the café.
“Excuse me,” Asia murmured. She got up, went across the shop to give her mother a kiss, then left.
Which left the grown-ups looking at Kady, who sat there looking like she’d done something clever.
“So you think Victor had something going on with Eden and Kendra? Maybe something to do with drugs and porn?” Rita asked.
She shrugged. “Nobody was getting hurt. Besides, I had nothing to do with it, so don’t be looking at me like that. I’m going to college, and after I graduate, I’m going to get an honest job. I don’t care what other people are doing.”
There was a startled pause.
“You made it sound like something was still going on,” I said.
“No I didn’t,” Kady said defiantly. “I never said that.” She suddenly gulped down the last of her coffee and stood up.
“Just what are other people doing?” Rita asked, looking up at her.
“I gotta go.”
She went.
We stared at one another for a moment, and then I said, “Oh, man, I’ve got a bad feeling about that. I hope that girl doesn’t know something that could put her in danger.”
Ed finally called me on my cell phone sometime late in the morning, while Michael and I were shopping at the hardware store.
“We’re in big trouble with the cops,” he said.
“Over that thing with Victor?”
“What else?”
“Oops.” It was all I could say. Michael motioned to me to the back of the aisle where we were alone, and we listened to the phone with our heads together.
“Is Bernie on the line?” I asked.
“I’m here.”
“Is this about that stunt we pulled yesterday, getting Victor in to fix your computer when it didn’t need fixing?”
“Just whose bright idea was that, anyway?” Bernie asked.
“Mine,” Ed and I said at the same time. “Well, we did agree that it was a bright idea,” I said. “What went wrong?”
“Victor has disappeared,” Bernie said, “just when the cops were ready to pull him in for questioning. When Kyle found out about our little meeting with him yesterday, he hit the roof. It may be a long time before he buys me another lunch at the diner.”
“The Sheriff came to my house while I was still asleep this morning and demanded my tape recorder,” Ed said. “My nerves are shot. He pounded on the door like a madman, shouting something I couldn’t understand.”
“Well, naturally you couldn’t understand,” I said sympathetically. “Your bedroom is at the back of the house.”
“Actually, I had fallen asleep on my desk. My other work had to be set aside to go to that meeting yesterday afternoon, and I like to record my impressions while they are fresh. The séance, you know. I think we can safely say we got real results at the Whitby House with Purity.”
“I think we can safely say you’re in denial,” I said. “You’d rather speculate about the unknown than have an angry cop on your doorstep. Did you give him the recorder?”
“Of course I did. I will be publishing, by the way. Since you were part of the séance, I’ll need a waiver from you. Naturally, I’ll change your name, if you prefer.”
“Ed, snap out of it. I could care less about the séance. Will you concentrate? Bernie, why did the cops want to talk to Victor?”
“They came up with the same theory we did: you know, that Victor came to Tropical Breeze in the first place because he figured out Eden and Kendra were carders. Being a bunch of cynics, the cops think he just wanted a piece of the action, but I’m beginning to think it’s more insane than that. I’ve been researching him, and Victor turns out to be a more interesting guy than you realize. He’s a man with a mission. A self-appointed cyber cop. No – the cyber cop. The sublime and benevolent king of the Internet, doing what’s best for everybody, whether they like it or not. For his more harmless pursuits, he likes the username Paladin. If he’s crazy enough, he may have come here to clean up the criminal activity, and when the girls didn’t go along with him, or counterattacked with something Eden had on him, well . . . .”
“I don’t believe it,” I said stoutly. “Victor is an egotist and some kind of mad genius, but he is not a killer.”
All the other parties to the call were silent long enough for me to realize that I had absolutely no reason to say what I did. But somehow, I firmly believed it.
“I want to know why you’d say a silly thing like that,” Bernie said. “You don’t know Victor from Adam.”
“Oh, well, it’s just a feeling. Forget about it. Anyway, are we in real trouble?”
My call-waiting beeper came through the phone, and I looked at the Caller I.D.
“Oh, boy,” Michael said.
“That’s Kyle calling us now,” I told Ed and Bernie. “I’d better hang up. Don’t worry, Bernie, we’ll tell him we put you up to it.”
“That won’t help. He knows I have a mind of my own.” She hung up.
“Try to settle him down,” Ed said desperately. “I have to go to Beverly Beach to meet with him this afternoon.”
“Bring donuts,” I said, then I flashed over to the other call.
“Taylor Verone,” I said sweetly.
Then I scrunched my eyes shut and held the phone away while Kyle expressed himself operatically.
“Well, half the time I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about,” I said nervously. “Anyway, you have Ed’s recording.”
“Only the first ten words or so, right up until he said ‘Turn that off,’” Kyle said. “Michael, I’m surprised at you,” he added.
“We were there to protect our elderly friend,” he replied without batting an eye. “She needed Victor’s services, but the man was new in town. We wanted to be sure he was legitimate.”
Apparently that was our position, and we were sticking to it. If Michael had asked me, I would have advised him as a friend of the court not to refer to Bernie as our “elderly friend.” Kyle can call her that, but he doesn’t like anybody else to. Still, I had a new appreciation for the term “mouthpiece,” as used by the Mob. I could only hope Michael would do all the talking.
Marty Frane, the detective with the creepy eyes, was there, along with Bill Weyer, and of course, Kyle. They’d wanted Ed to come at the same time, and he was there too, (with donuts – that man never knows when I’m joking), clearing his throat, shuffling his feet and adjusting his glasses.
“We know about the credit card fraud,” Frane said calmly. “As I’m sure our local investigative reporter has already informed you.”
“She did,” Michael said smoothly. “Do you think that’s why Eden and Kendra were killed?”
He ignored Michael and looked at me. “Miss Verone, why don’t we begin with you? I’d like you to tell us exactly what Victor Smith said yesterday, as best you can remember it.”
I told them about the soft porn, but I didn’t mention Kady’s statement that Eden had been selling it. Hearsay. I know the rul
es. And I figured the less I said, the better. I told them about the credit card dumps, handling the jargon like a pair of tight shoes. When I mentioned that Victor had been a teenager when he’d written the encryption code that was still keeping Eden’s hard drive locked up tight, I got the evil eye from Kyle. I finished up with the last thing Victor had said to me. The thing that didn’t make sense, at least not right there, right then.
I was frowning, not with the effort to remember, because I remembered it verbatim, but because I was still confused by it. “The last thing he did was turn to me and say, ‘Ever housebreak a puppy?’ I run an animal shelter, Detective Frane. I’ve bottle-fed a lot of puppies, and I can housebreak anything on four legs. I told him so. Then he looked at me in a funny way and said, ‘They learn pretty fast, don’t they? A good puppy never wets its own bed.’”
They waited.
Kyle said, “And?”
“That’s it. ‘A good puppy never wets its own bed.’ That’s what he said. But I don’t think he was talking about puppies.”
“No,” Frane said, his strange eyes glowing eerily. “He was talking about the bank. Eden wanted Kendra to crack her own bank, and she didn’t want to do it.”
I gasped in admiration. They don’t make detective because they drag their knuckles around and say Duh. “You’re right!” I exclaimed, as if he’d done a magic trick. He was very pleased with himself.
“Now,” he said in his creepy-silky voice, “Where is Mr. Smith?”
“I don’t know!” I said. “Can’t you track him down somehow on the Internet?”
“It’s much more likely,” Michael said, “that he’ll be tracking all of us on the Internet from now on.”
I’d already realized that myself, of course, but somehow hearing somebody else say it made it even worse. Still, I never do anything on my computer that I wouldn’t do in front of a roomful of grannies, so I didn’t think I cared.
The cyberstalking began that night.
Chapter 14
After the meeting, we ran around and got some things done, and had an early dinner at Tropical Breeze’s only real date-worthy restaurant. It’s called Thirty-Nine. It’s across the street from Girlfriend’s, at 39 Locust Street. Get it? Thirty-nine? Everything seems to be acronyms and digits these days, like we’re all walking around speaking code. No self-respecting restaurant calls itself a supper club any more, or even refers to the fact that you can eat there. It would be uncool.
I guess having a leisurely dinner in a candle-lit room, with two glasses of wine and the man I love had lulled me into a false sense of security. It was the day before Halloween, after all, and I had a lot to do.
When we got home and unloaded the SUV, I told Michael I just wanted to check my e-mail, and I’d only be a minute. I was beat, and I wanted to go to bed. When I got on-line, his messages began.
He had been out there somewhere, waiting for me. Waiting for my computer to come to life. Somewhere as he sat in the center of his own web, he had a feeler out that would send him a signal when I signed on, and he began to speak to me immediately, in the language he spoke best. My normal desktop screen faded to black, and I saw the words, “Hello, Taylor.”
I stared at the screen as if my computer had just come to life. His message dissolved within a few seconds, leaving a blank screen with a cursor blinking, waiting for me.
It took me a good thirty seconds to believe what I was seeing, and another thirty to decide what to do. As I sat blinking at the eye of the monster, another message in a smaller font said, “Taylor?”
I set my fingers on the keys and typed, “I’m here.”
“I’m sorry I had to leave. Please believe that I don’t blame you. I am not angry.”
I suddenly understood people who grab shotguns and blow away their television sets when something on the screen enrages them. I kept just enough presence of mind not to attack my computer, though. Computers are expensive.
I reset my fingers on the keys and typed, “How dare you, you SOB?”
“Are the cops being a nuisance?”
“OF COURSE THEY ARE! Where are you?”
“I’m sorry.” The message melted away, as each line in the thread did within a few seconds.
“Where are you, damn it!”
“I’m safe; thank you for asking.”
“You need to come back. They need the evidence from Eden’s computer. It’s encrypted, and they can’t break your code.”
Within a few seconds, a smiley-face devil appeared, then dissolved.
“Cute,” I said. Then I began typing again. “Now, would you please grow up and realize how serious this is? Unless you’re the killer, and in that case . . . .” I’ll leave out the details of what I suggested he could go do to himself.
“Taylor! And I thought you were a lady. Meh heh heh.”
I didn’t bother to answer that. While I fumed, and tried to figure out my next play, he sent: “Don’t be angry. I’ve already given you the passcode. Don’t you remember?”
I sat back and stared at the computer monitor as if it were a human face. I actually started to talk to it, then shook my head and hit the keyboard again, typing, “What the heck are you talking about?”
But before I could hit the Enter key, I stopped myself. Then I slowly pressed the Backspace key until all I had left was a blinking cursor. I murmured, “You little devil,” and then simply typed, “Got it.”
“Excellent. You’re welcome. Good-bye.”
I could only hope he meant, “Good-bye forever,” but that’s not what he said.
Instantly, my wallpaper came back up on my monitor and all my icons popped up. I had the odd sensation of a tentacle being retracted into cyberspace and disappearing with a little snap. Real time began again.
I picked up my phone and called Bernie.
“Tell Kyle’s I.T. guys to try this as a passcode for Eden’s computer. Write this down verbatim, okay? Here it is: ‘A good puppy never wets its own bed.’”
I heard a sharp intake of breath. “Good girl, Taylor!” she exclaimed. “I thought it was odd, the way he was looking at you when he said that. It seemed like a complete non sequitur. So you figured it out – or did Victor just call you?”
I didn’t exactly lie, but I didn’t exactly tell the truth either. I’m not really sure why I did it, except that I knew they’d come and take my computer away if I told her what had happened, and I knew that if Victor didn’t want any trace of our chat to remain on my hard drive, it wouldn’t be there. It would be an exercise in futility, and in the meantime, I’d be without my computer.
“No, he didn’t call me. I – I’ve just been thinking about it. You’re right. It was odd, the way he made eye contact with me when he said it, like he was trying to communicate something. He already knew he’d have to leave Tropical Breeze by then. Maybe he thought that if the cops could unlock Eden’s computer, they’d stop looking for him, but he didn’t want them to get the hint too soon, before he could disappear. Maybe this means he didn’t have anything to do with the murders after all. If he wants them to see what was on her hard drive, there must have been nothing there to incriminate him.”
“Sounds like wishful thinking, my dear. I wouldn’t count on it. And why would he hint around to you, instead of making an anonymous call to the police?”
“Who knows how that man thinks? He told me we have a special connection, because we were both left with no family when we were fairly young. Something like that. Anyway, have the boys in the lab mess around with that. It’s worth a shot.”
“Will do. And sometime you’re going to have to tell me the truth . . . off the record, if you prefer, but you know you can trust me. I always protect my sources.” She chuckled and hung up.
I sat back, staring at my familiar computer desktop and wondering if I could really be right, but somehow I already knew that I was.
I got up slowly and went upstairs. I needed to tell Michael what had just happened.
I got up early on Hall
oween morning, excited about the day and ready to rock and roll.
I called Bernie first thing, and she confirmed that the passcode had worked. I was free. The cops were decrypting the files in Eden’s computer now, and would be poring over them very soon. By the next time I saw Kyle, hopefully he wouldn’t be mad at me anymore.
I could go ahead and have a fun day. The cops would figure out what to do, and maybe they’d even find Eden’s killer today, or at least figure out who they were looking for. I had things to do; I wasn’t going to even think about Victor and his computer games.
And I decided it was time to talk to Michael about our strange cat. What better day than Halloween?
He was in the kitchen, pouring coffee, and when he saw me coming, he poured a second cup and handed it to me. As if she knew she was going to be the topic of conversation, Bastet came out of nowhere and leapt onto the high-boy chair I pulled out before I could sit on it myself. “Well, all rightie, then,” I said. “You take that chair and I’ll take this one.” I sat down beside her and she settled herself neatly on the padded chair and wrapped her tail around her feet.
“You know, having a black cat around on Halloween can be either good luck or bad luck.” I was talking to Michael, but continued to gaze at Bastet. She gazed back at me intelligently, as if academically interested.
I started gradually. I talked about animal familiars, and Ed’s theories about the Egyptian goddess Bastet, and the dispersal of Vesta Cadbury Huntington’s Egyptian collection among the people of Tropical Breeze. Then I laughed, just to show I wasn’t completely insane. “And then this cat appeared,” I said, sort of trailing off. Bastet still stared at me, unblinking, and I was still looking at her. “There’s something odd about this cat,” I mused, dropping my voice.
“Seriously, Taylor? You just noticed?”
Startled, I turned and looked at Michael. “Um, you mean you agree with me?”
He came around the breakfast bar and began to scratch behind Bastet’s ears. “I’ve known from the very beginning. I’m surprised it took you so long to figure it out.”